The Dating Game

The line “it’s all coming to an end” keeps running through my mind, within the blink of an eye I’ll be waving goodbye to university and starting a new chapter. Attempting to ease myself out of uni is the next step I’m taking, reflecting on my degree working out how to use it in the next five years. What jobs I should apply for, whether I should move locations to gain a little more independence. All of these ‘adult’ questions are finally making me realise I am growing up.

The one adventure that you started three years ago is becoming your journey to success, so treasure it and make it count. You start grounding yourself, understanding that there are petty little things which aren’t worth stressing over because looking at the bigger picture there’s a lot more to consider than getting annoyed over the fact that someone replied “ok” and not “okay”. I am guilty of this behaviour, lol! It’s all about employment, financial stability, saving for holidays with friends and loved ones and putting money aside for a house that will complete the picture.

And then there are relationships… (See where I’m going with this). I never really talk about dating, it’s always about uni and the good times and the memories but people date at uni… SHOCKING RIGHT?! I’m kidding, amongst the many hilarious memories of uni, dating is certainly an experience, working out whether you’re ‘dating/onit/seeing each other/checking each other/or actually together’…the lines between labels are so blurred, yet not one of those phrases above can even easily be defined! Everyone always said to me never get in to a relationship at uni, I never knew why and I still don’t to this day, but by the sounds of it, it does seem a good idea considering everyone I know in final year has virtually met their soul mate and are probably riding on the road to marriage, yet here I am riding on the road to KFC. I’m not saying cancel out all your priorities and only focus on finding a soul mate and marriage, if it happens, it will happen, and if you want to pursue it, you will. Don’t go chasing love, let the love find you! (Cheesy but true!)

I always think of the way everyone starts dating, everyone has their stories of how they caught each other’s eyes and met, the ‘look’ when you’re checking each other out in the club, the air is vibrant and sweaty, oh the romanticism! The ‘cheeky’ follow on Instagram, because even though you can only see a circle the size of a 5p coin on their profile somehow, magically, you know this person is absolutely beautiful and is going to consist of all the things on your “checklist in a guy/girl”. If it’s not a social gathering with alcohol, then it’s social media, either way Facebook, Instagram, Twitter don’t only help you stalk… but they also help you scope!

The most hilarious thing I find about dating is you begin with the “You have a good night?” message or the “Hey, you alright?” message over Facebook and you converse for a couple of months and everything goes happily, you’ve exchanged numbers, awaited a funny text from them with the random one liner where you pretend you didn’t know who it was… oh the banter! The awkward phone call that you dread hoping that they don’t sound like Darth Vader and that there’s no erm-ing and arr-ing with the uncomfortable silences… the gift of the gab is a God send here! The going for a drink and having food, ordering the least messiest thing on the menu so they don’t watch you eat as you indulge your food like you’re making love to it. The amount of times I have been nervous to eat in front of someone because I don’t think they understand my relationship with food! The paranoia is unreal! The constant phone calls and texts, it’s like a ‘honeymoon period’ of being with someone! Everything is rainbows and smiles!

But the most hilarious part about dating someone is the stalking. Okay it’s not amazing, you come across things you don’t want to see sometimes and you work yourself up about pointless and unnecessary things but it’s the craziness of the stalking that makes you realise who you really are. You go for the normal Facebook tagged pictures, uploads, maybe a couple of wall posts. Look up a couple of mutual friends, send a couple of texts to find out about whether they’re a barrel of laughs, because all you want is someone to make you laugh! You stalk through tagged pictures so you know what they actually look like because we all know profile pictures are deceiving, we look at their friends and work out if we picked the right one, I’m joking! But it’s the stalking when it’s been about 3 hours and you have somehow ended up on their best mate’s, brother’s, cousin’s, sister’s, mum’s page looking at tagged pictures from Barcelona 2012 and you have to get up and wean yourself off the laptop because this is not you! It’s not normal to know that his best mates, sister went to school at Bla Bla High School and her birthday is on the 3rd of July. (If you can relate anyone to the above sentences it is purely coincidental,lol!).

The ‘stalking’ game can last up to hours, and it can be very fun but never let it get the better of you! Always remember, you might come across a couple things you might not like, they might make your stomach turn, but they are things of the past and the only thing that is important right now is the present. You have memories to make with whoever the lucky one is, more drink dates to go on, more food to try! The bickering and arguing of insignificant things that apparently mean the world to you, when really it’s just an argument of where to eat! You’ve got all the spontaneity, the random nights you’re whisked away, the random days you spend together and the cinematic holding hands whilst you take romantic walks in the park.

Dating someone is about learning about each other, it’s understanding each other and making compromises. It’s taking variables in to consideration and realising with the right amount of effort you can make this work. You’ve got to give if you want to get and that’s the same with dating, the more you put in to it, the more you’ll get out of it.